The Old Council House

The Old Council House

Council house, later episcopal palace, now residence in Shrewsbury. The building dates from the 15th and 17th centuries with substantial additions made around 1840. The original parts are constructed of coursed and squared red sandstone, though most of the exterior is brick with plain tiled roofs.

The plan comprises a two-storey long range facing south-east, with a gabled porch and wing on the north-west elevation. Two further parallel wings now form separate dwellings (The Nun's House and The Centre House).

The long range facing the garden has a single wall of sandstone. Its fenestration dates from around 1830 and displays Gothic styling: a wide three-window range includes four-light mullioned French windows to the left with segmentally-arched heads, and paired mullioned windows above. A central canted bay window features stone mullions and a parapet with two-light round-arched windows beneath a gable with fretted barge-boards. To the right are a lancet window and a canted bay window with tall lancet lights. The brick gable wall displays paired mullioned windows with hoodmoulds.

The elevation to the courtyard retains partial coursed and squared sandstone rubble walls, raised in brick, with a small five-light stone mullioned window to the right. A timber-framed gabled porch, probably 17th century but restored and re-faced in the 19th century, features close studding with a segmental arch carried on Mannerist enriched pilasters and boars carved in the spandrels. A small mullioned window sits above. The inner doorway is a four-centred arch with hoodmould and relieving arch; in the tympanum formed by the relieving arch is the inscription "Unless the lord build the house, they have laboured in vayne that built it". To the left of the porch, a wing of around 1840 projects in brick, with paired two-light mullioned windows with round-arched heads and hoodmoulds on each floor beneath a gable with fretted barge-boards.

The interior retains much 17th-century detail, though extensive 19th-century remodelling has altered the positions of some earlier features and possibly introduced elements from elsewhere. The main hall was subdivided during the 19th century, with half now forming part of the neighbouring Council House Cottage. The decoration is very rich, featuring wall-panelling with an arcaded frieze and tympana over doorways carved with angels. Above the wall-panelling runs a lavish plasterwork frieze decorated with mythical beasts, swags, and birds. Stone bosses support moulded beams of the square-panelled ceiling. One boss over a window is dated 1634. A fireplace, possibly early 17th century and in Mannerist style with lavishly carved woodwork incorporating grotesque figures, now sits in the wall dividing this house from Council House Cottage, suggesting it is not in its original position. In an adjoining room, 17th-century wall-panelling is present, and two columns with strapwork enrichment on high pedestals partially divide one end of the room; these are unlikely to be in situ. The staircase dates from the early 19th-century remodelling. The wing of around 1840 forms a former chapel, incorporating re-sited 17th-century wall-panelling divided by fluted Doric pilasters and a fireplace dated 1670.

The roof structure over the central section survives from a 15th or early 16th-century building. It comprises two trusses: a king-post and collar truss with cambered tie-beam in the gabled cross wing, with two-tiers of cusped wind braces, and a crown post truss in the main range.

The earliest reference to the building dates to 1501, and the stone walls and roof structure possibly date from around this time. A building on this site served as the meeting place of the Council of the Welsh Marches, which gave it its name, though the present building owes much of its form to construction programmes dating from the early 17th century and early 19th century. Until recently it was the residence of the Bishop of Shrewsbury and formed part of a larger residence now subdivided.